Curtis Luck disqualified after missing tee time on Korn Ferry Tour

Aug 25, 2023

Ever heard of a professional being disqualified for missing his tee time? Meet Korn Ferry Tour player Curtis Luck…

Get there five minutes before. Be ready to tee off. It’s the usual process. Not, though, for Curtis Luck. He was disqualified for missing his tee time on the Korn Ferry Tour.

Luck was scheduled to tee off at 7.45am on the first day at the Albertsons Boise Open but missed his slot and was kicked out of the event – even though he was on site.

Curtis Luck missed his first-round tee time (7:45 a.m.) and did not arrive within the five additional minutes allotted under Rule 5.3a, and was subsequently disqualified. Luck did not meet any of the three exceptions within Rule 5.3a.
— Korn Ferry Tour Communications (@KFTComms) August 24, 2023

“I just flat-out misread my tee time,” the former US Amateur Champion told Golf Digest.

“I thought I was off at 7.55 a.m. and I was just on the range finishing my warm-up. I actually started walking to the tee at 7.46 a.m.”

“It is very unfortunate that I was on site and didn’t make it.”

Rule 5.3 says a player must start their round at their starting time. If they don’t, they’re disqualified except in three cases: they are ready to play no more than five minutes late, or no more than five minutes early, or the competition committee decides that “exceptional circumstances prevented the player from starting on time”.

The first two exceptions come with a two-shot sanction attached, and not disqualification, but none of them applied to Luck.

The Albertson Boise Open is the first of four tournaments in the Korn Ferry Finals.

A hundred and 44 players will make it through to next week’s Simmons Bank Open, with 120 qualifying for the penultimate event of the season, the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship.

Seventy five make it through to the Korn Ferry Tour Championship, in early October. The top 30 finishers will receive PGA Tour cards.

“I’ll just show up in Nashville and then Columbus and keep throwing everything I’ve got at the playoffs,” Luck added.

“Columbus is my favourite on the Korn Ferry Tour. So I just have to keep pressing on.”

Luck was the victor in Columbus at the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship in 2020.

Have you ever missed a tee time? If so, what was your reason? Let us know by tagging us on X, previously known as Twitter!